The Darkness in Ginny Weasley
by Surreptitious
Summary: Post-HogwartsVoldemort's defeat. Ginny still has remnants of Tom's darkness smothering her as she tries to live again.HG, with indirect DG.


Disclaimer _I'll sue you if you sue me, and then knowing you, you'll sue me back, and I'll sue you, and this whole thing will turn nasty. You don't want that, right? _

**A/N:** Pretty dark. Beware. I'm thinking this will be a one shot like most of my other works. However, if I get enough reviews wanting a second chapter or so, I might reconsider. Nothing is certain; if a certain review say, gives me an idea or something...Who knows.

Oh...And sorry about the title. winces I know it's really not the best, but I hardly ever actually title all the stuff I do at home or wherever, so I hate coming up with them...And this time I was just lazy. Enjoy.

Cheers.

_-Surreptitious-_

**The Darkness in Ginny Weasley**

Ginny Weasley squinted up at the street lamp. A car horn blared in the distance, and fog hazed over the surface of the London streets.

With a sigh, she expelled potent smoke from her cigarette, letting the wind carry away the scent. With a vigorous shake of her head, Ginny willed herself to alertness. She turned her head, smooth red hair rustling busily in the night breeze. She breathed in a strong drag of her Dunhill fag and turned on her heel. Her American Converse were silent on the gravely pavement.

Her eyes felt tired. Her neck felt tired. Too many cigs made her mouth feel slightly burnt, and her throat was no better. With a hoarse cough, she turned into the street to her flat.

A lone light gleamed through the dirty window. Ginny groaned. No doubt Harry was sitting up for her. Then he'd smell the cigarette smoke in her hair, no matter how much perfume she sprayed on before. If he didn't smell it in her hair, he'd find her out when he smelled her breath. She forgot the mints this time. She'd pay for it.

She stood outside, pausing before she entered the dingy apartment. She had no reservoir of courage to gather around her, no deep store of strength before facing her boyfriend.

Sure, she didn't have to put up with him and his prudish attitude. She could ditch him anytime she wanted. But then she'd have no home, nowhere to turn, and worse, no one to turn _to_.

He sure as hell didn't condone her late night walks, Ginny thought sardonically, a bitter smirk twisting up her lips. He always sat up for her, always cared, always tried to be the perfect boyfriend.

He never realized that wasn't what Ginny wanted.

With a resigned snort, Ginny pushed open the door, banging it noisily as she felt a surge of unexpected anger.

Harry started from his perch on the counter. "Gin. I was worried – "

Ginny swept past him, muttering a menacing "Shove it. Don't wanna hear it right now."

Once in her room, she locked the door, pushing a heavier chair against it in case Harry really wanted in. He had a key, after all. The lock was just a statement, really.

Letting out her breath in a burst of faint smoke from her last Dunhill, she sat down stiffly on the mattress of her single bed.

Rolling up the sleeves to her tattered black hoodie, she examined last night's damage. Critical, she traced a slow finger around the words etched in her arm. She hadn't told Harry. She didn't think she ever would.

As if going through a routine, she stood reluctantly and trudged slowly across the room. Opening her desk drawer, she withdrew a small envelope. Emptying a few pills into her hand, she downed them dry, without water.

She was messed up. Hugely. Beyond repair. And Harry thought he could fix her.

Ginny laughed harshly into the mirror leaning unsteadily on the wall. Tilting her head, she noticed her eyes. They used to be green, she thought lamentably. Now they turned an ugly shade of grey-ish yellow. Drugs did that to you.

She only took some pills. Helped her keep her figure when she over-ate due to stress.

And Harry thought she was too hard on herself. What did he know?

And the cutting? Well…that was different. That was for her anger. Her personal theory was that it was a kind of throwback from the Tom days…She coped better with the scissors in her hand. She didn't use a razor - that was for the serious ones. She was serious, but not suicidal. She just needed to cope. To control emotion, keep it under a rein. Her own leash, her own dictated rule.

The smoking helped her relax. She wasn't addicted or anything. She could probably give it up if she got to that point, though. The last thing she wanted was to be dependant on anything.

She lit up another fag and winced. Probably the seventh one that day. She was really going through the packs too fast…

She opened the small window in her room, leaning out into the welcoming darkness. She held the relaxant loosely in pale fingers, taking slow, heavy drags on the precious drug.

Ginny ran a finger under each of her eyes. She knew most of her eyeliner smudged off in the stroke, but she couldn't care less right now. She couldn't afford to mess up anymore. Harry would leave her, and she'd have no home – her eyes slid suddenly to the door.

Furrowing her brow, she stalked over to the chair, pulled it violently aside and turned the door handle. She hesitated in the small corridor between her room and the kitchen. She heard, vaguely, Harry's voice drifting through the flat.

On the phone with one of his saintly friends, no doubt. Probably even her brother. Lupin, any of the Order, really….

Ginny sneered mentally as her thoughts were proven by a distinct "Yeah…I feel so bad for her. I just wish I could help. Her life is so messed up – made so many bad decisions…Not just Tom, though that started it…"

Ginny exhaled, pressed herself against the wall. She was shaking, whether from anger or…something else, she couldn't tell. She still wore the sneer, but it shook slightly as tears welled in her eyes.

She couldn't remember the last time she'd cried.

She didn't need this. Abandoning her earlier plans of walking out on Harry then and there, she fled back to her room.

Lock the door. Push the chair into place. Collapse on the bed. Light a fag.

Her heart beat rapidly as she tried to calm herself down. Afraid her not-so-silent sobs would be heard by her over-caring boyfriend, she reached out blindly. Her fingers groped wildly on her stereo, flicking it on and slamming the volume knob to maximum capacity.

An unknown group blasted into her ears. The chorus stayed ringing loudly in her ears even as the song progressed:

_Nobody gets out of this ya pit alive; _

_Nobody, nobody gets out alive, _

_Nobody gets out of this ya pit alive; _

_Nobody, nobody gets out alive, _

_Nobody gets out of this ya pit alive; _

"That's right. No one gets out." Ginny mumbled around her fag, then swore as it went out. She leaned forward, trying to reach her lighter on the nightstand. She swore again when her reach fell just short. With a disgusted snort, she sat up with an effort, slammed the window shut and grabbed her lighter.

When she had it lit, her face composed once more, she left the room, leaving the radio to scream at her empty room.

Breezing into the kitchen with her blatantly lit cigarette, she ignored Harry's worried gaze. Opening the refrigerator, she eyed the measly fare.

"We have anything better than leftover's, Harry?" She asked, dangling the remaining half tab from her fingers tauntingly.

Harry swallowed before replying. "Gin, you know I prefer you not bring your cigs into the house. Your room already smells hopelessly, but I'd spare that fate to the rest of the flat."

Ginny laughed heartily. "Oh, don't flip your lid, Potter. It's just a fag." Her eyes gleamed as she held the white tab out. "You wanna drag?"

She smirked as he backed up hurriedly.

"You know I don't approve of that!"

"I know."

Harry's expression stayed impassive. He merely watched her going around the kitchen. "We don't have any alcohol now, but I suppose…a few here and there wouldn't hurt. As long as you moderate that stuff…Well, it's better then havin' the place smell to the high hills…" He trailed off as Ginny stiffened in surprise. Turning on him, she blew smoke in his face.

"So now you're being tolerant? Now? Why couldn't you have allowed me a little slack before it turned me to harder stuff? Huh?"

Disgusted with Harry's startled expression and gaping mouth, Ginny threw him a sickened, scathing glare and stomped out of the kitchen. Her way was made blurry by unwanted tears, and she barely stopped to grab a pack of Dunhills before she slammed the door behind her.

She stopped on the cracked sidewalk in front of the place. She could barely see her boyfriend slumped at the table, his loose hair throwing his eyes into shadow. She fought back tears for the second time that day. No, the trigger this last time wasn't much. But when one lived with a veritable flood of "triggers", even lesser ones, they built up quickly. Harry's flip-flopping suddenly, here, about her drinking angered her. On top of everything else, it was simply too much. So this was it. No turning back.

She rubbed her arms through the sleeves of her hoodie. She had some old gloves and a knit cap to keep her from the cold. She wished for her old robes, but she and Harry had to keep up the pretense of being muggle. Though Voldemort was killed, his followers still abounded, and Harry was one of the most sought after men in the wizarding world. Which explained their living in muggle England. Trudging down the sidewalk, she checked her pockets. A lighter, a pack of fags and her scars were all the protection she had. They were all she needed.

No reconciliation for her. No happy ending. No slight lee-way.

Ginny bit her lip hard and lowered her head against the wind. Slumping against the wall of an ally, she managed to take out her Dunhills. Her fingers shook fiercely as her finger kept slipping off the lighter's switch. Frustrated, she threw it forcefully against the opposite brick wall. It clattered against the bricks, then the stones where it finally rested, broken and cracked.

The tears came then, in silent, gut-twisting sobs. Ginny wilted abruptly against the wall, sliding down bonelessly.

The Dunhills stared up blankly from the gravel by her foot, and she kicked out angrily with a cry of pain, purely emotional distress. They skated across the gravel, stopping at the mouth of the ally.

She gave in to the anguish. She couldn't help but feel helpless. And that was exactly what she hated most.

_**xxxx**_

She had a headache when she woke up. Predictable.

She took several deep breaths before she stood up. She swayed a bit, and tried to orient herself. The first thing her eyes registered was her fags lying what she deemed far too close to the street. Picking her way over the garbage and general rubble in the ally, she rescued the pack. She pocketed them unconsciously.

The next thing she looked for was her lighter. Her eyes swept the narrow space, squinting in the watery sunlight. There – in the shadows, the skeleton of her lighter leaned bruised and broken against the wall.

She snatched it up and tried lighting the tab she'd absently placed haphazardly between her lips. It didn't catch. She shook it furiously, realizing belatedly that she'd bled the fluid from it when she'd thrown it against the wall.

She swore softly, albeit vehemently. She blinked hard and checked her pockets for spare change. She came up with a few pounds, and a broken cigarette she didn't remember shoving in the night before. Licking her lips, she bent her head against the dismal cold and started walking.

_**xxxx**_

Ginny didn't mean to head for the cemetery…it was more impulse guiding her. Indeed, all that her body processed now was instinct; her mind was numbing in its blankness. She mostly kept to the alleys when she could, an instinct left over from a darker presence that had never quite left her.

When she finally raised her head, squinting in the biting chill, an ornate gate loomed over her head. With a dutiful sigh, she absently entered the graveyard.

Ginny remembered coming here when she was younger, when...when she wasn't with Harry Potter, but someone…else.

Trees surrounded the small cemetery like guardians, familiar and somehow welcoming. Ginny didn't feel the warmth they inspired today. Her feet mechanically made their rounds about the resting places.

Without warning, she stumbled over something, pitching forward to fall hard on the icy ground. Her lips pressed tightly together as she suppressed a cry of pain; she scanned the area for what caused her fall.

With a small sob of surprise, she cleared weeds away from the stone marking a grave. It's once grey surface was an unfeeling black, with chips fragmented off, some jagged chunks lying in the brown weeds nearby.

A desperate moan escaped Ginny as her fingers trembled under the letters of Draco Malfoy's name, broken and frozen. With whispers of frantic apology, Ginny picked up shards of the stone marker, placing them numbly back in their spots. Tears began their bleak travels down her cheeks as she cut her fingers on the awkward sharp debris.

"What did I do to you…." She blinked hard through the gasping start of sobs. She felt like the smaller, seventeen year old of before, leaning silently over the grave. When his family had disowned him, all Ginny could scrape up was this tiny grave marker as his resting place.

And she _used_ to keep the graveyard clean, or at least Draco;s grave. Vandals had broken in over the years, she saw now. The youngest Malfoy's memory lay shattered in dead and dying weeds…

Guilt pressed on her heart, fear and loneliness bogged down her mind, her sense and reason.

Curling up beneath the dying tree over her mother's ruined gravestone, Ginny gave in to the sobs of despair that shook her body. Arms over her head, knees drawn up tight, she sniffed back excuses, whispered prayers, and offered her tears as small payment for years of neglect.

_**xxxx**_

Two hours later, Ginny closed the gate behind her. Her face was dirty, streaked with some mud, and tears. Shame veiled behind her eyes, shoulders hunched under despondency, her body responded…but just barely.

Her mind felt like a heavy mist besieged it.

Though it all, nothing mattered. The void she felt was only filled by scissors and a smoke.

Her thoughts cleared enough for a bitter last jab at her fleeing hope.

The word rang in her ears, the unspoken syllables triggering a fresh flood of silent tears.

All alone…In every single miserable sense of the word.

She stopped to take out a Dunhill - sucking on it dry as her lighter remained empty - squinted up at a stoplight across the street, and welcomed the dreariness as she walked.

xxx


End file.
